Buffer vs Metricool: per channel or per brand, and why the bill diverges

Most Buffer vs Metricool comparisons list features in two columns and leave you exactly where you started. The choice between these two is rarely settled on features, because both are competent at scheduling and both will publish your posts. It is settled on a structural difference that shows up on your card every month.

Buffer charges per channel. Metricool charges per brand. Those are not two ways of saying the same thing. They are two different meters, and depending on the shape of your work, one of them barely moves while the other climbs.

The one difference that decides it

A channel is a single connected account: one Instagram profile, one TikTok, one LinkedIn page. A brand is a set of channels belonging to one business or client.

So the question is not "which is cheaper". It is: when your work grows, does it grow by adding channels to the same brand, or by adding whole new brands?

• A creator expanding onto more platforms adds channels to one brand.
• An agency signing a new client adds a brand, which brings its own channels with it.

Those two growth patterns hit these two pricing models very differently.

Worked scenarios

Buffer's Essentials plan is $5 per channel / month, and its free tier covers up to three channels. Metricool's free tier covers one brand, Starter is From $20 / month billed yearly for up to five brands, and Advanced is From $53 / month billed yearly for up to fifteen.

Run four realistic situations through both.

One creator, three platforms. Buffer is free, because three channels is exactly the free tier. Metricool is also free, because three channels belonging to you is one brand. Nobody wins. Pick on feel.

One creator, eight platforms. Buffer now meters all eight. Metricool still sees one brand, and the free tier still covers one brand. This is the case where the per-brand meter simply does not move, and it is the single strongest argument for Metricool in this comparison.

A freelancer with four clients, three channels each. Twelve channels for Buffer. Four brands for Metricool, which fits inside Starter at From $20 / month billed yearly. The per-brand meter is now cheaper by a wide margin, and it gets wider with every channel each client adds.

A small team posting for one brand across six channels. Now it flips. Buffer meters six channels, but Metricool's brand count is still one, so you are paying for headroom you are not using. Here the comparison turns on team features rather than the meter, and neither company's pricing page settles that.

The pattern: channels-wide, one owner favours the per-brand meter. Many owners, few channels each also favours it. The per-channel meter is competitive when your footprint is small, and its free tier is the more generous of the two at exactly three channels.

Where the free tiers actually differ

Both have one, and they are not equivalent. Buffer's is capped by channel count, three, with a stated limit of ten scheduled posts per channel. Metricool's is capped by brand count, one, and a single brand can hold more than three channels.

So a creator on five channels is over Buffer's free line and still inside Metricool's. A freelancer with two small clients is inside Buffer's free line if the total is three channels and outside Metricool's, because two clients is two brands.

Neither free tier is better in the abstract. They are capped on different axes, and you are inside one of them.

Buying signals

Pick Metricool if you post to a lot of platforms under one identity, or if you manage several clients and expect that number to be the thing that grows. Its own positioning is "An analytics-led social media tool priced by how many brands you manage, with a free tier for one brand.", and the brand meter is the direct expression of that.

Pick Buffer if your footprint is genuinely small and likely to stay there, or if three channels and ten scheduled posts each is honestly enough. Its positioning is "A publishing and scheduling tool priced per channel, with a free tier for up to three channels.", and the per-channel meter is honest about what it is: you pay for what you connect, with no minimum.

Do not pick on price alone at the small end. At three channels they both cost nothing, and the deciding factor is which interface you will actually open on a Tuesday.

Annual cost at real configurations

Monthly prices hide the decision. Here is the same set of situations priced for a year, using Buffer's annual per-channel rate and Metricool's annual plan rates.

Your situation	Buffer (Essentials, annual)	Metricool (annual)
1 brand, 3 channels	Free tier covers it	Free tier covers it
1 brand, 6 channels	About $360 a year	Free tier covers it
1 brand, 12 channels	About $720 a year	Free tier covers it
4 brands, 3 channels each	About $720 a year	About $240 a year (Starter)
8 brands, 4 channels each	About $1,920 a year	About $240 a year (Starter)
15 brands, 4 channels each	About $3,600 a year	About $636 a year (Advanced)

Two things jump out. The per-brand meter does not move at all as one owner adds platforms, which is why the first three rows collapse to free. And past about four brands the gap is no longer a preference, it is an order of magnitude.

The row worth staring at is the last one. A fifteen-client freelancer pays about $636 a year on one model and about $3,600 on the other for the same work. That is a staff cost difference, not a software cost difference.

What the table does not price

Three real costs sit outside both meters, and skipping them is the most common way this decision goes wrong.

The channels you forget to disconnect. Per-channel billing means a dormant account you connected once and never posted to is a live line item. Audit your connected channels before comparing, then audit them again every quarter. This is the single most common source of surprise on per-channel plans.

The brand you create for a one-off. Per-brand billing has the mirror-image failure: a workspace created for a client who churned six months ago still counts toward your cap, and you discover it when signing client number six pushes you up a tier.

The scheduled-post cap. Buffer's free tier is stated as ten scheduled posts per channel. If you batch a month of content at a time, three channels times ten posts is roughly a week and a half of a daily posting habit, not a month. The free tier is real, but it is sized for testing rather than for running.

If you are switching from one to the other

Neither migration is dramatic, but two things are worth doing in order.

First, export or screenshot your historical numbers before you disconnect anything. Analytics tools generally pull a limited window of history from each platform's API when you connect, so a channel disconnected and reconnected later may come back with a gap. Whatever reporting you owe a client for the current quarter, capture it first.

Second, overlap the subscriptions by one billing cycle. Reconnecting accounts, rebuilding queues and re-inviting collaborators always takes longer than planned, and running both for a month costs less than discovering mid-migration that your scheduled posts did not carry over. Cancel the old one after a full posting cycle has run cleanly on the new one, not before.

Common questions

Is Metricool free forever, or is it a trial?

Its pricing page lists a plan at $0 / month covering one brand, presented as a plan rather than a time-limited trial. Buffer likewise lists a plan described as free forever for up to three channels. Both are plans, not trials, with different caps: brand count in one case and channel count plus scheduled posts in the other.

Which one is cheaper for a solo creator?

If you post to three or fewer channels, both are free and the question is moot. Past three channels under a single identity, the per-brand model is cheaper because your brand count is still one. That advantage grows with every platform you add.

Which one is cheaper for an agency?

The per-brand model, clearly, and by a widening margin as clients accumulate. The counter-argument is not price, it is whether you need per-person permissions and client approval steps, which neither pricing page states and which you should test in a trial.

Do I have to pay yearly?

Metricool publishes both cycles, so the monthly premium is visible: Starter is listed as "Up to 5 brands; $25 / month billed monthly". Buffer quotes a monthly per-channel price with the annual equivalent stated alongside. Budget at the rate you will actually pay, and remember that annual pricing is a twelve-month commitment to a channel count you may not still have.

The numbers, side by side

Buffer

Plan	Price	Notes
Free	Free forever	Up to 3 channels, 10 scheduled posts per channel
Essentials	$5 per channel / month	$60 per channel billed yearly
Team	$10 per channel / month	$120 per channel billed yearly

Buffer's pricing and features checked on 9 September 2026, from their own site.

Metricool

Plan	Price	Notes
Free	$0 / month	Manage 1 brand
Starter	From $20 / month billed yearly	Up to 5 brands; $25 / month billed monthly
Advanced	From $53 / month billed yearly	Up to 15 brands; $67 / month billed monthly
Custom	Contact them

Metricool's pricing and features checked on 9 September 2026, from their own site.

A note on what this page will not do: it compares pricing, pricing models and each company's own positioning, all read off their public pages on the dates shown. It does not rank their features against each other. Both companies ship a great deal that their pricing pages do not enumerate, and inventing a feature gap for either would be worse than leaving the question open. Trial both; the models below are what decide it for most people anyway.

If neither is quite the shape of your problem

Both tools on this page manage content. Neither carries the business the content is for: the brand deal, the deliverables and their due dates, the contract, the invoice, or what any of it earned.

If that is the part costing you evenings, Vantr is built around it and publishes to 12 platforms alongside. It has a free tier, so you can see whether that is your missing piece before paying anything. If the money side already works for you, ignore this and pick from the two above.

Sources

• Buffer pricing
• Metricool pricing